Mobile and Broadcast Convergence

Nowadays, an increasing number of consumers watch linear or non-linear content on their traditional home screens, as well as on their smart-phones and tablets. Although much of this content is currently delivered via Wi-Fi networks, these new forms of media consumption dramatically increase the load on mobile networks. This situation may require new solutions, such as the leveraging of a one-to-many broadcasting approach.

In the future, mobile devices will probably rely on a combination of mobile broadband, fixed broadband, Wi-Fi, broadcast network infrastructure and local storage. Existing 3G and 4G mobile networks can deliver video services but were primarily designed for two-way and one-to-one services. While they have been extended by a broadcast service (MBMS) that may deliver content to an arbitrary number of mobile viewers in a typical cell, there are opportunities for further work on delivering linear video content to large numbers of simultaneous viewers (in the same cell or across many cells).

Future standards (such as 5G) could enable a highly efficient delivery of mass video traffic through a one-to-many “broadcast” delivery scheme, built upon co-operation between and/or convergence of broadcast and mobile networks.

ETSI has established an Industry Specification Group (ISG) on Mobile and Broadcast Convergence (MBC). The ISG MBC will produce a comprehensive report exploring the deployment and business models of converged networks from the perspectives of all interested parties, especially including:

broadcasters

terrestrial broadcast network operators

mobile network operators

satellite broadcast network operators

content owners/providers

network infrastructure vendors

manufacturers of consumer equipment

consumers

The potential benefits and challenges from commercial and technical perspectives will be taken into account.

The requirements supporting delivery of media including linear and non-linear elements over converged networks will be specified.

The role of the Industry Specification Group will exclude development of technical standards and it will not make recommendations about spectrum allocations. However, spectrum authorization models which impact the regulatory framework and/or business model may need to be considered in the work. As a starting point, the ISG reviews existing, related work in this area and consider the viewpoints of consumers.

The MBC ISG is open to all ETSI members and non-members. For more information please contact ISGsupport@etsi.org.